Viability and Stewardship: Walking the Housing Tightrope at UKREiiF

By Jennie Walker, Development Project Manager, Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust

Attending UKREiiF for the first time this year, I was in the incredibly fortunate position of having won Women in Planning’s Career Reconnections ticket. Determined to make the most of the opportunity, the trainers were on, as I knew the step count would be punishing, and my diary was operating at Bernard’s Watch levels of optimism.

This wasn’t just a chance to attend an event, it felt like a genuine invitation into conversations shaping the future of our places and the communities defining them.

I am in the fortunate yet sometimes slightly unusual, position of having spent the first decade of my career with one of the UK’s largest residential developers before moving to Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust, a long-established and historic not-for-profit housing association. As such I found myself engaging with the content of the many panels and discussions I attended with the appreciation and experiences awarded by my last role, but with the challenge and passion set by my current one.

This created an interesting personal tension throughout the conference. I understand the commercial realities, viability pressures and delivery challenges because they once sat at the centre of my day to day work. Those pressures have of course not disappeared, but my perspective and priorities have shifted toward questions of long term stewardship, affordability, social value and the lived experience of residents, rather than ROCE and PBIT! Throughout the event, I found myself balancing those two viewpoints while taking in a broad range of others, with Seebohm Rowntree occasionally providing a posthumous nudge for good measure.

The industry does create space for different voices, priorities and definitions of success within the housing conversation but it also requires challenge in forums like UKREiiF to ensure that each sector is making itself fully supportive and accommodating of the other. Collaboration over Competition felt like a recurring theme throughout the discussions I attended.

That idea surfaced repeatedly during both the Housing Partnership panels and discussions led by the Great North Mayors. It was refreshing to hear said out loud the recognition that housing challenges do not stop neatly at local authority boundaries, and neither should the solutions. During a panel featuring David Skaith, Tracy Brabin and Cllr Liam Robinson, it was energising to hear housing framed not simply as a numbers game, but as the infrastructure that underpins economic growth, transport connectivity, health outcomes and social mobility.

The energy that Devolution is bringing powered many of the conversations I attended at UKREiiF. There was a renewed sense of enthusiasm and belief that regions can move forward at a pace beyond what has previously been achieved, even realistically if not yet at the scale required. Comments from Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury Dan Tomlinson MP on fiscal devolution gave further hope that perhaps this might actually work! Aligning public and private investment, while thinking regionally rather than parochially, could finally help unlock progress on a crisis that has resisted solutions for decades.

What struck me most at UKREiiF was not only the shared sense of responsibility to do the right thing, but the urgency to do it quickly. I found myself returning repeatedly to a concept raised by landscape architect Rasmus Astrup during a York and North Yorkshire panel discussion: the Haudenosaunee philosophy of “Seven Generations”. The idea that decisions made today should be judged by their impact seven generations into the future.

Sitting in those conversations, with the legacy of the Rowntree’s always somewhere in the back of my mind, the idea felt especially resonant. Rowntree’s vision for York was never about short-term wins or political cycles. It was about creating a fairer and healthier society that could endure. Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust is in the unique position of being four or even five generations into that mission already. Yet if affordability is in crisis now, then without more radical change and a deeper commitment to devolution and partnership, it is both difficult and unpleasant to imagine the housing situation my own seven-times-grandchildren might inherit.

Attending the conference has given me the boost of optimism needed to enable change at the scale I can personally deliver on. Whether through Homes England projects, involvement in my regional Housing Partnership, or simply taking a fresh perspective on affordable housing delivery. I left feeling more motivated about the contribution I can personally make. A big thank you to Women in Planning for granting me this opportunity.

The challenge now, for myself, Partnerships, Mayors and all UKREiiF attendees alike, is ensuring that the vision discussed is matched with action at a pace future generations will thank us for.